


Aegis of Eris

by Violetlight (Violetlight83)



Series: FMA: Code Eris [5]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fem!Envy, Implied Sexual Content, Shapeshifting, Sibling Incest, traitor homunculi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22103809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetlight83/pseuds/Violetlight
Summary: After the Liore incident, Envy ends up detoured into Dublith.  With the Promised Day so close, but her role in the Plan fulfilled, perhaps it's time to finally "retire" and take Greed up on his offer to join him.  When Greed is captured by their other siblings, however, Envy must gather unexpected allies to help rescue him, namely, the Elric Brothers.  Brotherhood divergence.  Ties into my other FMA stories.
Relationships: Dolcetto | Dorochet/Martel | Marta, Envy/Greed (Fullmetal Alchemist), King Bradley/Mrs. Bradley, Lust/Pride (Selim Bradley)
Series: FMA: Code Eris [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591180
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. Nothing Else Matters

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, in any of its incarnations. That pleasure belongs to Hiromu Arakawa. I am borrowing her universe and characters for entertainment purposes only. 
> 
> Author’s Note: I recently got back into FMA after a long absence from the fandom (having a kid will do that), but I had an idea for an AU that I just have to explore. What if Envy abandoned the other homunculi after Liore, and took Greed up on his offer to join him? My pre-series events from “Wheels Within Wheels” and my other FMA stories are canon to this fic, so Envy and Greed had a relationship about a hundred years prior to the series, right before Greed abandoned the other homunculi, and they met up again, 20 years before FMA, in my story “Virtue of Vice”. It would probably help to read the first chapter of “Wheels” and “Virtue” first, as well as my other oneshots “Bad Romance” and “Something About Us”. Envy also began identifying as female for her relationship (sorry yaoi fans, that’s just not my thing!). 
> 
> Regarding the title: An “Aegis” is a synonym for shield, particularly the shield wielded by Athena, the Ancient Greek Goddess of Wisdom, which was decorated with the head of Medusa, the snake-haired gorgon whose look could turn people to stone. Eris was the Greek Goddess of discord and chaos, who indirectly caused the Trojan war. So, the “ultimate shield” of mythology, wielded by one who could be said to “carve blood crests”. See what I did there? 
> 
> So, what butterfly effect on the series will Envy’s deflection cause? Read to find out!
> 
> Oh, and hugs to anyone who figures out what other anime Envy’s human disguise is from in this chapter!

# Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

## “Aegis of Eris”

##  By Violetlight 

### Chapter 1: Nothing Else Matters

###    
  
_Amestris Rail train number 426 will be arriving in Dublith in 5 minutes. Thank you for travelling with Amestris Rail._  
  
“Where the hell am I now?” Envy groaned at the engineer’s announcement. She stretched in her seat, and caught her reflection in the window. Her current form, a young woman with shoulder-length, brown pigtails, dressed in a low-cut, yellow sundress, her ouroborus tattoo on her left thigh just peeking from beneath the skirt, was nowhere near as cute as her Beautiful Self, but she supposed it was a serviceable civilian disguise. She just wished she had not had to “wear” it for so long, since shortly after she had left Liore, so for this entire miserable train trip. _At least it’s better than that fat bastard Cornello – ugh, Gluttony’s cuter than that moron was._ Envy smiled at her reflection. At least she would never have to wear that disguise ever again. Liore had been a fun Blood Crest to carve, but still!  
  
_Just_ how _did I end up this far south anyway?_ Envy thought to herself as she grabbed her small suitcase and parasol from the luggage rack as the train slid to a stop at, where was she again? Dublith? Where had she heard that name before? It hardly mattered. She just remembered that she’d have to get off here, and the train that would finally take her to Central would not be running until later that evening, leaving her with about four hours to either hang around the train station, bored, or go explore the town, perhaps slightly less bored. But only slightly.  
  
Envy got off the train onto the dumpy little platform, and swore under her breath as she noticed a sign, informing her that the Central Train was delayed by another two hours that night. “You’d think friggin’ Wrath could get the trains running on time. Some dictator he is,” Envy mumbled to herself . “More like ‘dick-tator’” she giggled quietly at her own joke. Eyeing a rack of postcards near the ticket booth, she briefly considered sending another one to Lust, telling her of the delay, but decided against it. She would be in Central again, _finally,_ by tomorrow morning, probably faster than the mail anyway. Hell, Lust probably only just got the letter she sent from … wherever the hell it was, that first so-called “civilised” town (as far as humans _could_ be civilised) past Liore, where Envy had first caught the train that had ended up taking her all over Hell’s creation.  
A road sign caught her attention – Kauroy Lake – 5 km. Oh yeah, hadn’t Lust mentioned it once? There was apparently an island in the middle of the lake where no humans lived at all. Sounds awesome. Just getting away from those disgusting, annoying humans for a while; it would be the perfect place for a vacation. She could “stretch out” in her true form, not have to worry about some little pests yelling “monster! monster!”, although making them go _splat_ under her claws was always fun too.   
South City had been even more fun, as had Pendleton, Forset, Liore, oh, and _especially_ Ishval. Envy’s smile widened, almost as much as the grin she often wore while not disguised. _Sucks there’s only one Blood Crest left now. I love my job!_  
  
That thought stuck in her mind as she wandered further from the train station, into the business district of the town. _Fort Briggs is the last Crest left, and that’s close to where Sloth will finish digging his tunnel. With the Promised Day so close now, Father will probably just let him loose to cause some mayhem. That means I won’t have the chance to carve the Briggs Crest. So, that leaves waiting, probably babysitting Gluttony, babysitting the Sacrifices, looking for more Sacrifices! How boring!_ Envy frowned. Keeping things alive was so not her style. _And Father won’t let me go out and kill a town just for the hell of it – a ‘waste of souls’. I guess I could always go and join one of the border wars, but knowing my luck, I’ll be stuck with one of the boring jobs instead._ With a shudder, Envy remembered that the only confirmed Human Sacrifice was that brat kid, the Fullmetal Pipsqueak, who had caused so much trouble for Lust in Liore before she had showed up to put things right. Just Lust’s and Wrath’s descriptions alone were enough to bug the shit out of her – the arrogance of that brat. And unlike Pride, who at least had _some_ reason to be the prick he was, the Pipsqueak was just some lowly human. To be stuck babysitting him! _Nope, nope nope! Not going there Envy!_  
  
Envy wandered absent-mindedly around Dublith’s business district, growing more and more bored. There really was not much to see here, just the usual human shops, nothing there was not at least a hundred copies of in Central, nothing interesting. She looked up at a clock tower and rolled her eyes when she realized only about half an hour had passed since she left the train station. She had not even seen a bookshop or newspaper stand or anything that would let her know what was going on in the real world! These little hick towns sucked! She sat down on the curb in front of a butcher’s shop and watched the people go by. Maybe she would get some ideas for new disguises. Anything to lessen her boredom.  
  
After another half hour, nothing caught her attention, save for one, rather pissed-off-looking lady who glared at her as she walked past Envy and into the butcher’s shop, her demeanour changing instantly as she started getting all lovey-dovey with the gorilla of a man behind the counter. The butcher’s wife, evidently, not that it mattered. Envy scoffed, and turned back towards the street as her shapeshifter’s eyes finally caught something interesting.  
  
Across the street and a few doors down, Envy noticed an ugly, bald old beggar in an uglier brown cloak, who had been sitting around, asking passersby for loose change for at least as long as Envy had been sitting on the curb. However, as he finally got up, she noticed that he seemed to be leaning forward far more than usual, like something behind him was throwing him off balance. Envy had studied human movement for more than long enough to know that something was _off_ about the way he moved. He had got up just as a pair of fancily-dressed, rich-looking people came down the sidewalk towards his spot. They looked the type that would go out of their way to sneer at a homeless person, so Envy did not blame him for moving. What happened next, however, definitively got her attention.  
  
The beggar quickly looked around him (not noticing her watching him from across the street, however), and ducked into the alley behind his spot. Envy got up and walked a little ways down the street to see what exactly was going on. As the rich couple walked past the alley, a hand shot out from _above_ where a human would normally be, and grabbed the wallet that had been haphazardly sticking out from the rich woman’s purse. They never even noticed, and continued on their way. Envy, however, had walked far enough up the opposite street to see into the alley, and was greeted by the sight of the beggar, clinging to the brick wall like a goddamned lizard! Wait, it was _exactly_ like a lizard! A long, green tail was sticking out from his cloak!  
  
A chimera! Envy had found a runaway chimera! Now _this_ was interesting!  
  
Envy vaguely remembered one of her siblings, probably Lust, saying something about the military’s secret Human Chimera program. At first, they had just grabbed homeless people off the streets of Central and the other larger cities to experiment on, then, injured soldiers from Ishval and the other warfronts. Grab people who wouldn’t be missed, then alchemically fuse them with animals, hoping to create super-powered soldiers for black ops missions that the homunculi were either too busy to go on themselves, or were not worth their time. Most of the test subjects died, of course, but some had actually lived, and some recent field tests had been proving their usefulness. _Oh yeah, I think a truckload of some of the earlier successes had gone off the road near the end of the Ishvalan war, and we never did find out where they had run off to. Looks like I found one of them!_ Envy thought to herself. _I wonder where he’s going?_  
  
A little game of chimera-tracking was bound to be more fun than sitting around doing nothing, at any rate.  
  
Envy crossed the street, and ducked into the alley the chimera had gone down. She grinned. Now might be the perfect time to “field test” a new form she had been working on.  
  
Ducking into a particularly dark corner, red alchemical sparks crackled around Envy as she shrunk down, far smaller than a human form, but luckily, not as small as the form she had been “born” as. It was a bit difficult to compress her mass into such a small space, but once she concentrated, it was as easy as shrinking from her amazing True form into a human shape. Just a little conversion of mass into Philosopher’s Stone energy, nothing too drastic. She bent down into a quadrupedal stance and sprouted soft, black and white fur, roughly matching the pattern of her Beautiful Self’s cute outfit to her perfect pale skin. Her ears pointed, and moved to the top of her head, and a long, elegant tail sprung out behind her. Needle-sharp claws grew from the soft paws her hands and feet had become, and in her mouth she sprouted long canine teeth. She tested the vocals, letting out a quiet “meow”.  
  
Satisfied with her adorable new cat form, Envy scampered down the alley after the chimera.  
  
***  
  
To anyone else, tracking a chimera that could use the walls and roofs as easily as the pavement would have been a challenge, but as Envy could move in the same way when it suited her, it was not too difficult, even as he led her through the unfamiliar maze of alleys. She leapt gracefully from fire escapes to windowsills to the tops of garbage cans, then down to the alley “street” and back up again, always keeping her eyes open for flashes of brown and green – the chimera’s cloak and tail. Finally, Envy saw him duck down a sunken concrete staircase. She looked up at the sign above the door – _The Devil’s Nest._ It looked like a dingy old bar, the type common to the “bad side” of any town. _Appropriate. It’s not like homeless chimeras would be hanging out at fancy hotels,_ Envy mused.  
  
Spotting a sunken, basement window, Envy stepped down into its little trench and tried to look in, but the windows of the bar obviously had not been washed in, well, likely forever. Through the grime, she could barely make out a few blurry shapes, including a green snaky line of the chimera’s tail as he perched on something, probably a barstool. So, he was not shy about letting his true nature slip in this place.  
  
As she thought of a suitable form to take, something that would not attract too much attention, the door to the bar swung open as somebody stepped outside, and up the stairs to the street. Envy peeked up from the window trench, to see if she could just slip by in her cat form into the bar, when her breath caught in her throat with a feeling of déjà vu.  
  
It had been twenty years since she had last saw him, but he looked the same as always – the smug, shark-toothed grin, spiky black hair, even his damn sunglasses. The only new thing was the cigarette dangling out of his mouth, but even that was completely in character for him.  
  
_Greed!_  
  
Without even trying, Envy had found him again!  
  
She had last seen him at the Central Faire, had tricked him into reuniting with her. Envy started to purr as she remembered just how that meeting had gone. He had still wanted her, even after so long away from her …  
  
_Envy … join me. Fuck Father, fuck his plans. I’ve been waiting for you …_  
  
“Why hello there, pretty girl,” Envy snapped back to the present as Greed spotted her. “Come on out, don’t be shy.”  
  
She knew she should just act like a real animal and run away, but, against what her siblings would probably consider “better judgment”, Envy hopped out from the window trench, and cautiously padded up to him. He had seen her; what was the point in leaving now?  
  
He seemed surprised as he kneeled down and placed a hand on her head, scratching her gently behind her ears. “This is new. Animals usually don’t like me, well, except for my minions, that is.”  
  
Envy leaned into his touch. Even in this form, it felt so good! She purred louder.  
  
Greed smiled at her, and stroked his hand down her back, then, his eyebrow raised as something seemed to click for him. He hand lingered over her left thigh, right where her ouroboros was, her white fur doing little to hide the red of the tattoo, the one part of herself Envy could never completely shapeshift away …  
  
Greed sucked in his breath, his cigarette dropping from his mouth onto the pavement below.  
  
Envy looked at him and mewed hopefully.  
  
His voice dropped to a whisper, “how would you like to be mine?” he asked, equally hopefully.  
  
For a moment, she and Greed just stared at each other, as the consequences of what he was asking ran through her mind. Leave the others. Leave Father and his Plan. Be with Greed, this time, forever …  
  
The Promised Day was so close now, but Envy’s part was over. Father really did not need her anymore, and he had _not_ gone out of his way to bring Greed home in all the time he had been gone. Her other siblings, would they miss her? Pride was too much of a prick, Wrath seemed indifferent to her and Sloth simply did not care, even when he was around. Gluttony probably would at first, but he would get over it as quickly as he had when Greed left. Lust … she might understand.  
  
Perhaps it really was time to … retire.  
  
Envy looked into the violet eyes of her lover, and performed a very un-catlike action. She nodded.  
  
***  
  
“Hey boss,” one of the bar’s occupants, a blonde woman with green tattoos snaking across her right arm, shoulder and the right side of her face, greeted her “employer” as he came back inside the bar. Her eyebrow raised as Envy padded in beside him. “Since when did you get a pet?”  
  
“Since now, Martel,” Greed answered casually, “Such a cute little thing, I couldn’t help but want her, and you should know by now, what I want, I get.”  
  
“Aww, not a cat! Bossssss!” A short, spiky-haired man in white whined.  
  
“Don’t mind him, boss, I’ll take Dolcetto out for his ‘walkies’ if you want.” A large, heavyset man said as he leaned back against the wall, a huge hammer balanced across his shoulders. He looked down at the cat with a small smile as she purred, rubbing against Greed’s leg. “Heh. I can’t say much for her taste if she likes you though,” he teased.  
  
“Funny, Roa. Real funny. I’m going to show my, um, ‘kitty’, around. Don’t bug me unless the place sets on fire,” Greed said, and walked – rather quickly – through a door behind the bar. Envy turned her head, and gave Greed’s minions – probably more chimeras – a smug look before following.  
  
***  
  
Envy followed Greed down the hallway, passing doors leading to spartan-looking rooms, evidently his minions’ living areas, to the more opulent one at the end. His, of course. She darted inside, under his legs, and barely gave him a chance to close his door before she shapeshifted back into her Beautiful Self and practically leaped into his arms, meeting his kiss eagerly.  
  
“Envy …” Greed pulled back after a few, long minutes. “What are you –?”  
  
She silenced him with a finger to his lips, “does your offer still stand? To join you?”  
  
“Seriously?” Greed asked, his sarcastic voice betrayed by the genuine smile that spread across his face.  
  
“Well, unless you don’t want me anymor –” Greed cut her off with another kiss.  
  
“I want it all, ‘Vee,” Greed said after a few more minutes, as he pulled back, and wrapped his arms strongly, possessively, around Envy. “Especially you, my little monster,” he breathed as he began trailing kisses down Envy’s neck, “welcome home.”  
  
“Oh Greed …” for a second, Envy’s smile was as genuine as his, then she answered him with another passionate kiss as the two homunculi stumbled back together through his room, somehow landing on Greed’s bed ...  
  
No more words were needed. They were finally together again.  
  



	2. All Night Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a passionate night together, both Envy and Greed are feeling a bit ... clingy, almost disbelieving their luck in finally reuniting. A bit of talking, and remembering, helps them both adjust, before Envy finally makes her grand introduction to the Chimeras.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Same as chapter 1. I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. Do I have to put a disclaimer with each chapter on Ao3? I'm new to this site. 
> 
> Author's Note: Special thanks to my beta, Shocotate! You're awesome!
> 
> The flashback scene featured in this chapter is a continuation of my oneshot "Virtue of Vice" and will probably make a bit more sense if you read that one first, though it's not completely necessary to get what's going on.

**Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood**

**“Aegis of Eris”**

By Violetlight

****************************************************************************************************************************

Chapter 2: All Night Forever

Envy slowly opened her eyes as she felt a pleasant, warm feeling on her face. She blinked, closing her eyes again quickly as a beam of sunlight seemed to want to shine directly into her corneas. _Wait … sunlight?_ That was not something she usually felt when waking up in the Lair beneath Central. It was kind of hard to see the sun from so far underground – she could and often did go weeks between missions without seeing it at all. Now, however, the sun shone brightly through a sunken basement window, somehow at just the right angle for its rays to hit her face.  
  
Envy snuggled underneath the Xingese silk sheets and remembered with a smile where she was. No more dingy old Lair for her! She leaned back against the pillows and sighed, still feeling a satisfying, tingling sensation from the night before.  
  
Last night had been a _very_ good start, but she and Greed still had a lot of “catching up” yet to do, a century’s worth, and she looked forward to every second of it!  
  
The smile Envy wore was far from her usual, evil “slasher” grin. No, this smile was genuine, as she felt something she had not felt in so long …  
  
She was happy.  
  
For once, the nagging feelings of inadequacy, of doubt, the malicious, jealous thoughts that usually assaulted her mind simply were not there. Greed made her feel … wanted.  
  
Where was Greed anyway?  
  
Envy sat up as panic started to overwhelm her. _No no no, he couldn’t have left me again! This is Greed’s place, isn’t it? He wouldn’t just leave …_  
  
Looking around the expensive, Drachman hardwood furnishings of Greed’s bedroom, Envy’s eyes caught a flash of green poking out from the wardrobe. Curious, she got out of bed, not even bothering to shapeshift back on her clothes, and reached inside.  
  
“He kept it?” Envy pulled out a bug-eyed, plush lizard that vaguely resembled her birth form, the same carnival prize she had won twenty years ago, that Greed had taken with him after their short-lived reunion …  
  
***  
  
In a supply tent at the Central Faire, surrounded by wooden crates, Envy lay in the arms of her lover, her body still pulsing from their mind-blowing sex, but the reality of their situation was starting to sink in. “I … I don’t want you to go again,” Envy admitted.  
  
Greed held her against his chest, his hand running through her green-black tresses gently. “I know ‘Vee. I know,” he sighed, and hugged her against him possessively. “But you know I can’t go back. Not now. Not ever.”  
  
“What if I go with you?” Envy had asked suddenly, impulsively.  
  
“What? And miss out on killing all those humans? We both know you don’t really want that. Not even for me,” Greed smiled sadly. “I can’t stay in Central much longer, or dear old Pops will sense my Stone.” Greed got up, and pulled back on his pants.  
  
Envy nodded. She knew full well what Greed’s fate would be if their Father caught him. He would likely be “reclaimed” – his body destroyed, his Philosopher’s Stone reabsorbed by their sadistic parent, the punishment that Father had gleefully described as the one reserved especially for disloyal homunculi. And even if Father decided to remake Greed one day, it would be a New Greed, without the memories of his previous life. How he felt about Envy, their whole history together, the good and the bad, would be resigned to oblivion.  
  
“One day, when the Blood Crests are all carved …” Envy began, as she sat back against the crates, hugging her knees to her chest.  
  
“I still think this whole ‘Promised Day’ bullshit is going to bite the old man in the ass, hard, but yeah. When he doesn’t need you, and doesn’t care …”  
  
Envy shook her head. “I … I can’t make any promises.”  
  
“I know, ‘Vee,” Greed kneeled down, and gave Envy one final kiss, a kiss neither of them wanted to end …  
  
When they finally did pull apart, Envy crawled over to something on the ground, a green plush lizard that she had won at a surprisingly fun carnival game called “Whack a Seal”. It had fallen out of the tote bag she had thrown onto the top of a nearby crate when they had first snuck into the tent. She briefly hugged the plushie, and gave it to Greed. “Here, it’s ugly anyway. Just … don’t forget me, okay?”  
  
Greed looked surprised for a second, unused to being given anything. But he nodded and tucked the plushie under his arm gratefully. He then gave her his usual, shark-toothed grin. “I never forget what’s mine, my little monster.”  
  
For just a second, Greed looked over his shoulder, before he exited the tent, leaving Envy curled up against the wall of crates, trying to ignore the tears leaking from her eyes.  
  
***  
  
“I can’t believe he kept this stupid little thing,” Envy said, and hugged the plushie to her, like she had all those years ago. “Heh, that stupid hoarder never did let go of anything he considers his,” her wry smile became true.  
  
Reassured, she put the plushie on her pillow, and took a better look around Greed’s room – her room too now, she supposed (not that she would tell him that). She saw a door she had not noticed before, opened it, and saw it led to an ensuite bathroom, with a huge, old-fashioned, clawfoot tub, perfect for a nice, relaxing soak.  
  
Envy stepped into the bathroom like she owned the place. Greed’s taste for the “finer things in life” was something she could get used to.  
  
***  
  
Greed hummed to himself from the empty bar. The Devil’s Nest would not be open for business until late afternoon, when people started to get off work and needed an excuse to not go home right away. Like most bars, it would stay open until past midnight, and the later the hour, the more drunk people became, the more money he would make. What a perfect business model, as his chimeras had pointed out on more than one occasion. Greed tended to have a better opinion overall of humans than his siblings did, but in some cases, they seemed strangely determined to prove themselves to be exactly the idiots the homunculi saw them as.  
  
Not that it mattered at the moment, as he put the finishing touch on a special drink for _his_ girl, _his_ Envy – a shiny red cherry on top of a fancy chocolate milkshake, with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. _I’m still having a hard time believing it. Envy … she’s here, and I’ll never have to let her go again!_  
  
“Enjoy your ‘night off’, Boss?”  
  
“Roa, speak of the devil,” Greed grinned at his chimera minion as he came into the bar from the living quarters’ hallway. “I was just thinking about that old saying of yours, how’d it go again?”  
  
“If you can’t make money off of drunk people, you’re an idiot,” Roa supplied. The ox chimera eyed the milkshake as Greed put it on a tray next to his own preferred drink – an iced tea/lemonade blend that could easily be mistaken for beer. “Looks like your girl has the same sweet tooth you have.”  
  
So, the minions knew he had “company”. Well, he and Envy had not exactly been quiet the night before. “Hey, just because I sell that piss-water doesn’t mean I have to drink it,” Greed said. Misdirection was not _technically_ lying, after all.  
  
“That’s just because you can’t get drunk, Boss,” Roa countered, not fooled for a second. “You usually booze up your girls real good, spend half the night showing them off in the bar before having your way with them, and they’re never still here by morning. So what’s going on? And how’d you sneak her to your room without any of us noticing?”  
  
“This one’s, she’s … she’s special. I’ll introduce her to the gang in a few, don’t worry. Oh, and if any of the other girls drop by, do me a favour and tell them to get lost. My new girl’s got a bit of a jealous streak. I don’t want anything getting ‘messy’.”  
  
Roa raised an eyebrow, “if you say so Boss.” He said, his scepticism obvious, as Greed walked back up the hallway to his room, drinks in hand. “Is she really worth it?” he asked.  
  
Greed turned around, faced his minion, and smiled so genuinely that Roa was visibly startled, “She’s one of a kind, Roa, and she’s worth everything.”  
  
***  
  
“Rise and shine, my sexy little monster! I’ve got something for you, besides me, that is,” Greed entered his room, expecting – and hoping – to see Envy still in bed, as he had left her, smiling in her sleep after their very fun night together. The look she had on her face when he had first woken up himself, so happy and at peace, knowing that _he_ made her feel that way … it took all his self-restraint to not wake her up then and there and go for round – what number were they on now?  
  
But, Greed had remembered from the single year they had spent as an “item”, before he had left his family, how much Envy enjoyed chocolate, and just how she had “thanked” him whenever he had treated her. It hardly mattered that now chocolate was a lot easier – and cheaper! – to find than it had been a hundred years ago.  
  
When he looked over to the bed and saw it was empty, except for his little green lizard plushie, he swore his Stone jumped in his chest – only for a second, of course. She wouldn’t leave, not now!  
  
He heard the sound of splashing from his bathroom and Greed let out the breath he had not realised he had been holding. He set the tray of drinks down on his nightstand and checked his reflection in one of the several mirrors he had around his room, relieved that his previous worry did not show. Wearing his usual, confident grin, he stepped into the bathroom.  
  
“I see you found the tub,” Greed smirked, as he found Envy reclined amidst a small mountain of bubbles, her eyes closed, looking completely relaxed.  
  
Envy opened her violet, slit-pupiled eyes, eyes that matched his own perfectly, and looked at him coyly, “Hey.”  
  
Greed knelt down next to the tub and kissed Envy, relishing in the feeling of her lips on his, her tongue twisting around his in a way only his shapeshifting lover was capable of.  
  
“Fuck Dad right to hell,” he murmured when they pulled back, “for making me leave you behind.”  
  
“Didn’t I already make it clear how much I missed you too?” Envy poked Greed gently in his chest, leaving a splatter of bubbles from her bath.  
  
“I can always use another reminder,” Greed countered as he leaned against the side of the tub. “You sure the others aren’t going to come looking for you?”  
  
Envy scoffed, blowing away enough bubbles that a window of clear water appeared in front of her, giving Greed quite the view of her small (but still sexy!) breasts. “I doubt it. Lust hardly even talked to me in Liore, even after _she_ had to call _me_ in to fix what _she_ had fucked up.” Envy crossed her arms, ruining the view. “The Old Hag even made me babysit Gluttony while she snuck down to Sloth’s Tunnel to get her ‘fix’, before she buggered off to Truth knows where.”  
  
“Pride?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Wait, those two are still going at it, even after –?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“Goddamnit, Lust! You can do better than that little Prick,” Greed grumbled.  
  
“Anyway,” Envy transparently turned the conversation away from their sister, and her former rival for Greed’s “attention”. “There’s only one Crest left and it’s in the middle of freezing butt-fuck nowhere Briggs. Sloth can have it!”  
  
“That’s assuming the ‘Promised Day’ even happens. Didn’t you say something yesterday about there only being one confirmed Sacrifice?” Greed asked, and started to massage Envy’s shoulders, to calm her down from his “Lust” comments. He smirked as he felt her relax under his touch – some things never change.  
  
“Yeah, just one brat kid of a State Alchemist, and we still need four more!” Envy said as she leaned against him. “Why’d we even bother with that stupid program in the first place?”  
  
Greed leaned over her and planted a small, upside down kiss on Envy’s forehead, right in the middle of the triangle pattern formed by her three alchemical nodes and their leylines. “There’s no more ‘we’, my little monster. Just ‘us’.”  
  
“Force of habit,” Envy gave him that one, as she leaned forward, letting him rub her back. She shivered in pleasure as Greed rubbed the three nodes on her back, his fingers trailing lazily across the leyline connecting them.  
  
“For the record, I thought the Plan was bullshit the moment Gluttony’s Gate failed. Having to rely on five humans with just the right mix of skill in alchemy, desperation and stupidity, all being alive and in Amestris at the same time as the Promised Day? Yeah, good luck with that Pops!” Greed snickered.  
  
“I don’t know, Father just might pull it off,” Envy frowned. She shifted under his touch uneasily. “The bastard’s cunning, otherwise we wouldn’t be here and Xerxes still would.”  
  
“Hey, don’t worry ‘Vee. I wasn’t planning on sticking around here anyway,” Greed slid his arms forward in a hug around Envy’s shoulders. “I’ve got a nice little place on the beach waiting for us in Aerugo. I figured we’d take off once winter hits. Just think,” he leaned close enough for his breath to tickle Envy’s ear. “While everyone’s up here freezing, we can celebrate New Year’s in style, just you and me, on the nice, warm sand. The chimeras can watch the bar, while we do so,” he slipped his hands downwards, covering Envy’s breasts, “much more than just kiss at midnight.” Greed punctuated his point by nipping gently at Envy’s neck with his sharp teeth. He drew just a speck of blood, which he licked up, his tongue tingling with the tiny crackle of alchemical sparks as the little cut regenerated.  
  
“Why wait?” Envy purred, making it very clear she was not just referring to the move, but then she rolled over in the tub and faced Greed. “Wait a sec, why did you stay here at all? The Promised Day is less than a year away now. Why are you anywhere near Amestris, never mind in some little hick town like Dublith?”  
  
“Isn’t it obvious, ‘Vee? I was waiting for you.”  
  
Envy stared for a second, obviously unsure whether or not to believe him, then she rose out of the tub, giving Greed a great look at her lithe, naked body, her wet hair, shining an iridescent dark green, clung against her, reaching almost down to her knees, forming an alluring curtain around her. She peered up at him with a look Greed knew only too well, a look that said _you’re mine_ , before she pressed herself against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.  
  
“Your wait’s over,” Envy breathed as Greed, well, greedily met her inviting lips.  
  
***  
  
“Is Mister Greed taking another night off?” Bido asked his fellow chimeras. The gecko hybrid played nervously with the end of his tail while he perched on his barstool, his actions conveying the unease he was sure his comrades felt. “We open in two hours, and he’s barely come out of his room all day,” he glanced around at the others – Ulchi perched on the barstool next to his, while Dolcetto slumped across the back of Greed’s couch, and Martel and Roa leaned against the wall.  
  
“The Boss said he’ll be out ‘in a few’ so just keep your pants on,” Dolcetto complained, irritated at Bido’s nervousness.  
  
“He’s got a weird definition of ‘a few’,” Martel said.  
  
“Don’t forget, it’s his bar, he can do what he wants,” Roa said. “Though he was acting really … I don’t know, strange, when I saw him last, even for Greed. Almost like that girl of his has him wrapped around her little finger.”  
  
Martel and Dolcetto looked at each other in disbelief.  
  
Ulchi smiled a crocodile grin, “Heh, the right girl can do that, though she really must be something else to do it to the Boss. Now I really want to meet her!”  
  
Martel rolled her eyes. “So what colour do you want your gravestone, Ulchi? Don’t even think of messing with the Boss’ things.”  
  
“All of you, stop being stupid. Greed will get his ass out here when he wants, we just have to trust him,” Roa told the others with finality. “He might be a selfish, greedy bastard, but he takes care of us, trusts us with his bar, with his _money_ ; he’s given us a home when we had none. So show some respect.”  
  
The chimeras heard a slow clap from behind the bar. Greed walked out of the back and to the middle of the room, followed by that black and white cat he had adopted the day before, “I’m glad one of you gets it,” he said in that teasing, yet confident way of his which always put his chimeras at ease.  
  
“Mister Greed!” Bido said, relieved.  
  
“So where’s this mysterious temptress who’s kept you so occupied, Boss?” Dolcetto asked sarcastically.  
  
“Yeah, the suspense is killing us,” Roa dryly added.  
  
Greed gave his minions a confident smirk. “She’s right here. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed her yet.”  
  
The chimeras looked at their homunculus employer blankly.  
  
Ulchi was the first to speak. “I don’t see no one, Boss, except you, and, um, your cat.”  
  
“Oh great, the Boss has finally lost it,” Dolcetto muttered under his breath to Martel.  
  
The chimeras then got the shock of their lives when the _cat_ started giggling! Then, it spoke!  
  
“Ha ha! You were right Greed! That was hilarious!”  
  
Before the chimeras’ startled eyes, a lightning storm of red sparks just like those that jumped from Greed when he used his Ultimate Shield surrounded the little feline as it grew, its fur changing into smooth, pale skin, its ears rotating down to the sides of its head, a mane of long, spiky, green-black hair sprouting from its head. It reared up, its body shifting into a feminine, but bordering on androgynous human form, the black fur of its feline body becoming a strange outfit consisting of a midriff-baring tank top and a black skort, with fingerless and toeless gloves and socks appearing across its arms and legs, with the same red dragon-eating-its-own-tail tattoo that Greed had on his hand gracing its left thigh. A black headband with a red, triangular pattern, similar to the red markings on Greed’s back and chest, completed the outfit of the violet-eyed, slit-pupiled being that now stood before them, at their Boss’ side, a wide, dangerous grin crossing its face.  
  
Greed smiled almost as widely, and wrapped his arm around the former-feline’s slim waist. “Bido, Ulchi, Dolcetto, Martel, and Roa, I’d like all of you to meet Envy the Jealous, the Ultimate Mask. She’s my little sister, and, as you’ve probably guessed, she’s a homunculus too.”  
  
Envy eyed the still-speechless chimeras. To Bido’s surprise, Envy’s gaze lingered on him, and her grin softened somewhat. “Bido, was it?” the new, beautiful homunculus asked.  
  
“M- m- Miss Envy?” he stuttered nervously.  
  
Envy seemed to think about something for a moment, and then continued. “You didn’t know it at the time, but you led me here, you helped me find my brother after a very long time, so … thanks.”  
  
Bido lit up, so happy to be _thanked_ for anything, and thrilled that he had helped his boss, well, bosses now. He was sold, even if the other chimeras still seemed sceptical of the new addition to the gang.  
  
Greed gave Envy’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “You see, ‘Vee? There’s nothing to it! You’ll be right at home here in no time!”  
  



	3. A Beautiful Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Envy and Greed spend more time together, they begin to realise just how different their personalities are - Extroverted, human-enjoying Greed contrasts quite a bit with his introverted, human-despising sister/lover. Greed realises he doesn't even know what Envy likes to do for fun, besides be with him. However, as doubts start forming in Envy's own mind, she reaffirms to herself the commitment she has made to her brother, and to her new life. Perhaps, like Greed suggests, Envy just needs to find her own "thing".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Special thanks to my beta reader, Shocotate! You're amazing as always, and everyone who reads this, please check out her new story, "Carried Away"
> 
> This chapter's title is in reference to the song, "A Beautiful Thing" by The Tragically Hip.

**Fullmetal Alchemist**

**"Aegis of Eris"**

by Violetlight

*******************************************************************************************************************************************

Chapter 3: A Beautiful Thing

“Awww! Such a little cutie! Greed, can we get one as a pet? Pleeeeassse?”

Greed chuckled at his “girlfriend’s” enthusiasm. When he had read in the _Dublith Gazette’s_ classifieds about a travelling fossil show – “Ancient Beasts of the Xerxian Desert” – coming to Dublith’s touristy Lakefront district, he thought it might be a nice place to take Envy, but he had not counted on just _how_ happy she would be to look at all the “dinosaurs”, as the (mostly) giant, ancient reptiles were apparently called. The one that currently had Envy’s attention, however, was tiny, about the size of a turkey. Heh, for some reason, he thought it would have been bigger. 

“Damn, ‘Vee, why’d you have to say something? Now I want one, seventy million years too late.” Greed had never expected Envy to coo over _anything_ , but as he watched her kneel in front of the model of what looked like a bad-tempered, scaly, green, bipedal lizard with switchblades on its feet, he had to smile. “Of course you would think some prehistoric death lizard was cute.” 

“ _Velociraptor_ , ‘swift seizer’ in Xerxian,” Envy read the little bronze plaque placed in front of the model, as she stroked its ceramic head like it was a faithful pet. “What a perfect name for such a perfect little predator! Did you see that picture of that fossil of one of these little guys kicking the ever-living crap out of that wussy plant-eater?” Envy asked, as she glanced at over a few fossils of said ‘wussy plant eater’ – _Protoceratops_ , evidently – and what looked like its eggs, the next display over from its hunters. 

“Yeah, I saw. Too bad the Xingese Emperor claimed the fossil itself as a ‘national treasure’. Don’t worry though, we’ll get to see it when _I’m_ Emperor of Xing, as well as Führer of Amestris, Prince of Aerugo, Tsar of Drachma, President of Creta …”

“Yeah, yeah. Greed the Avaricious, King of the Whole Goddamn World,” Envy rolled her eyes, “I think I was Created in the wrong era. Just imagine, a world full of these beautiful creatures, with no humans around to ruin it!”

“Just you and the other monsters, eh ‘Vee?” 

“Just _us_ and the dinosaurs,” Envy assured him with a cute, flirty smile. She got up, and wandered over to another of the fossils on display in the circle-style tent set up in a small park, the lapping of the waves at Lake Kauroy’s nearby beach quietly audible in the background. Envy’s longer-than-usual skort, with a swirled green-and-black pattern as opposed to her usual plain black, swished as she moved, along with her long hair, which was done up in a high ponytail, tied up with what looked like her headband. Envy also had on a green and black v-necked blouse, almost, but not quite, covering her midriff, and matching black sneakers instead of her weird, heelless and toeless socks. It was so nice that she had “dressed up” for their – was it a date? Yeah, he guessed it was. 

Greed had been starting to get worried. Envy had been with him for almost a week now, and, after her “introduction” to the chimeras, had barely left his room. Not that he particularly minded having a sexy woman (sort of … close enough) in his bed, ready to go at a moment’s notice (and they very often _did!_ ), but he _wanted_ more, and he was pretty sure that she wanted more from him than just sex too, or she would, soon enough, but what did Envy even _like_? Besides screwing him, killing humans, and now, dinosaurs, that is? Back in the day, his siblings had been kept busy with ‘work’, for the most part, but Lust had her romance novels, so maybe Envy had a hobby too? She had her shapeshifting “lessons” with Pride when she was young, but any time spent with _that_ little Prick hardly counted as “fun”. Greed was sorry to say he could not remember a single thing Envy had done on her own, besides hide out in her room in the Lair – a huge, but barren place, housing little more than the massive, flat rock Envy had “stretched out” on in her True Form to sleep. Needless to say, they had spent the majority of their “relationship” in _his_ room. He had tried to introduce her to what the world above had to offer, but unless it was for “work”, Envy had seemed completely uninterested in anything humans did, and barely tolerated their presence. As much as a night on the town was fun for him, it hadn’t been for Envy, and if _she_ was miserable, she made sure to spread that misery to everyone around her, so he had given up on that after a few tries. He had tried to teach her a few things they could do together, besides have sex, like play cards, but missions or their siblings had kept getting in the way, and then … 

Pops’ twisted “sparring match”. Their oldest brother’s sadistic reaction … Greed couldn’t stand it any longer – he _had_ to leave, had to get away from Father and his bullshit plans. But he had not been able to take Envy with him, as much as he wanted to, and it pissed him off to no end, wanting something and _not_ having it. 

Against all the odds, it was Envy who had found him again. Who _wanted_ him again, even after he had been forced to leave her. Envy, who did _not_ take rejection well, and yet, here she was … 

Greed walked up to _his_ lover, _his_ Envy, and hugged her from behind, “did I tell you how much I love the new outfit, Babe?” 

Envy stiffened in his arms at his last word. “Don’t call me that.” 

“Call you what? Babe?”

“You used to call _Lust_ ‘Babe’,” her words were like ice.

He did? Oh yeah. Shit. 

Luckily, before Greed could dig himself a deeper hole, it was Envy who changed the subject. “It’s not exactly new.”

“What isn’t?” Greed asked.

“The ‘outfit’. I’ve ‘worn’ it a couple times before. Like at a certain carnival about twenty years ago, well, before I put on that ‘skanky ho’ disguise that you so stupidly fell for,” she said smugly, and turned her attention back to the prehistoric skeleton in front of them, which looked kind of like a giant, shell-less turtle with a double -row of roughly rounded plates sticking out from its backbone. “Oh, look at the spikes on that one! A spiky tail, great idea, _Wuerhosaurus_!” 

At Envy’s perfect pronunciation of the, again, Xerxian name of the spike-turtle, Greed noticed a brief, smug smile from the human running the show, an alchemist with short, curly black hair, wearing squarish sunglasses (not as stylish as _his_ , of course), and a leather jacket. As Envy wandered over to another display, the alchemist turned his attention back to the small crowd of humans who had been listening to his lecture about his process. “Well, you see, um, so the fossils aren’t really bone anymore. They’ve become mineralized over time. Ne-nevertheless, that mineral is different from the surrounding rock, so, um, with a little alchemy, my associate, Dr. Wu, and I, c-can easily remove that rock without harming the fossils within. We, um, hardly need to dig anymore.” He gestured to the Xingese man beside him, who kept glancing over at Greed and Envy, giving them a weird look. 

_Let him stare._ Greed gave a smug smile himself and sauntered over to where Envy stood. 

She gazed upwards, her mouth slightly open, at what could only be described as a monster. The ancient creature’s skeleton towered over them, on two strong legs tipped with meat-cleaver claws, the top of its head threatening to poke through the top of the tent. Its gigantic jaws gaped open, large enough to swallow a human whole, with teeth like railroad spikes. Now _this_ was a dinosaur! It was almost as intimidating as Envy’s True Form. 

“You poor thing. They put you together all wrong,” Envy said, with a scowl at the alchemist across the tent. 

“ _Tarbosaurus bataar_ ,” Greed read the monster’s plaque. “What do you mean?”

“Look at her! They have her leaning back on her tail. Stupid humans! She _should_ have her head balanced by her tail, with her centre of gravity over her hips, otherwise she’d topple over,” Envy pointed out. Her brow furrowed as she gazed at the dinosaur skeleton, “that’s why her arms are so proportionally small – they need to be, to balance out that huge head.” Envy closed her eyes, “Bones first. See how it comes together. Muscles follow, connecting the bones, allowing them to move. Skin over that. Focus on details last,” she said quietly, like a mantra. 

Greed nodded. “Is that what you think of, when trying out a new form?” he asked, as he slid his Shield over his hand absentmindedly, and back down, a few times. He had not realized Envy’s shapeshifting took so much mental effort, so much _work_. Not like his Shield at all. 

Envy’s shoulders’ slumped. “I _shouldn’t_ even be thinking of that. Dinosaurs have been dead for millions of years. I’ll never have a reason to take these forms.”

Greed grimaced. That wasn’t Envy talking; that was her former tutor, their prick of a brother. He gently turned Envy around to face him, and put his arms around her. “I’m not Pride, ‘Vee. I’m not going to crawl up your ass if you want to experiment with your power. There aren’t any missions to worry about anymore, no more plots and schemes. If you want to be a dinosaur, be a dinosaur! Take whatever shape you want!” He looked right in her violet eyes and gently stroked her cheek. “Envy, you’re _free_.” 

“I … oh Greed,” she sighed and snuggled against him. 

Greed kissed her on the forehead, right between where her nodes would be, if they had been visible. “It’s okay. It took me a while to get used to it too.” 

“You? Really?” Envy looked at him sceptically. “Isn’t freedom what you wanted the most?” 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it came easy. It took me years to stop jumping at my shadow – literally. Took even longer for it to really sink in that I could do whatever I wanted, when I wanted, be my _own_ boss. Make my own plans, or none at all! You’ve only had about a week, ‘Vee –”

“Five days.”

“Whatever. The point is, give it time. Besides,” Greed gave her his best, confident, shark-toothed grin. “You don’t have to do it alone. I’m here for you, my little monster. The chimeras are too, if you’ll let them.” 

At the mention of his minions, Envy turned away from him again, crossing her arms. “I already said I won’t ‘break your things’.” 

Greed shrugged. “It’s a start. Look ‘Vee, I know you hate humans, and I don’t blame you. Most of them are stupid, vapid, selfish and self-absorbed. That’s what makes it so fun to separate them from their cenz! But my chimeras aren’t like that. They’re actually more like us.”

“Huh?” Envy raised an eyebrow. 

“They were made by alchemy, we were made by alchemy. They’ve escaped from their creators, and we’ve given old Pops the one-finger salute. See? Lots in common.”

Envy’s gaze wandered back to the _Tarbosaurus_ , before she started walking absentmindedly towards the other side of the tent. “Do you remember what Sloth said, right before you … left? Humans hate us. We can never be what we _really_ are around them, just because we’re different. Your chimeras used to be ‘normal’, but they were _made_ different, unlike us. We’ve always been homunculi – not that I’m complaining. But if they find out that _our family_ controls the military that fucked them over …”

“Oh, they know,” Greed said casually. 

Envy turned around. “What?!”

“And they’re still with me. What does that tell you?” Greed smiled. “Besides, you seem to like Bido alright.”

“The lizard-guy?” 

“That’s him.”

“Well, at least _he_ gives us the respect we deserve. He’s the only one of your minions with any manners,” Envy huffed. 

“What have Martel, Roa and Dolcetto done?” Greed asked.

“Nothing. That’s just it, they’ve done nothing. They won’t talk to me, not that I really care, but still! It’s rude. And … are you _sure_ the snake-girl doesn’t have a thing for you?” Envy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. 

“What? Martel? Ha ha! No way!” Greed had to laugh. “Trust me, she likes it _doggy_ -style. She and Dolcetto were together long before I rescued them; I guess it got boring in that lab,” he saw Envy relax, a little, and changed the subject, before she could dwell on any jealous suspicions. “I had a little chat with Ulchi about his … ungentlemanly comments, as well.”

“Oh? So the punch into the brick wall wasn’t enough to teach him? Scaly bastard’s lucky I didn’t punch him right _through_ it!”

“He won’t bother you again,” Greed said with finality. “You’re _mine_ , ‘Vee. He’s an idiot to forget that, but he’s still my minion, my possession,” Greed sighed. “Look, I’m not asking you to be best friends with them. Just … try to give them a chance? For me?”

“Greed … I just … I need time, okay. Like you said,” Envy said, as Greed put his hand on her shoulder. She reached up, covering his Ouroboros-marked hand with hers, and leaned against him. “I’m here because I wanted to be with _you_ , not your _pets_.”

“I get it, ‘Vee,” he said with a kiss to her cheek. 

Envy was not paying attention. “Oh wow …” she gasped. 

Greed looked up. They were standing in front of a tiny fossil, even smaller than the switchblade-lizard. It was a _Hapoterus_. According to its plaque, it was a ‘pterosaur’, an ancient flying reptile from somewhere in Xing, which, to Greed, looked more like a bat-bird. He then followed Envy’s gaze, to the positively _huge_ bone displayed next to the fossil. Even he, without Envy’s shapeshifter eyes, could see what it was – a giant version of the same kind of wing bones that the bat-bird had. 

“I never thought something that big could fly …” Envy said quietly. Was that awe? “I always wanted to try, but Pride would never let me. He said it was ‘useless” to take any other shape than human, and a few animals like dogs and horses. It took me this long just to manage _cat_ , and even then, I’m far heavier than any real cat; I can’t get nowhere near as light as a bird,” Envy explained, her voice tinged with regret. She took a breath and continued, still staring at the giant fossil wing. “If something that big could get off the ground, even so long ago …”

“Nothing is impossible, my little monster,” Greed purred to her. 

In the background, the alchemist was on a tirade about some question one of the visitors had asked. Something about whether alchemy could ever be used to bring the dinosaurs back to life, if Greed had heard right. 

“No no no no. _No_. Alchemy’s not just some toy. Even if it was possible – which it isn’t –“

“You Amestrians think too much about what Alchemy _can_ do. You never stop to think about whether it _should_ ,” the alchemist’s Xingese partner concluded for him. Greed could feel his eyes boring into him and Envy, even from across the room. What was with that guy?

“Heh, well _he’s_ not Sacrifice material,” Envy smirked. 

Greed sighed. “Come on, ‘Vee. Martel was telling me about an ice cream place around here that makes the best hot fudge sundaes,” he subtly led Envy towards the tent’s exit. 

***

Although Envy had been disappointed to leave the dinosaur exhibit, the rest of the “date” had gone pretty well, she supposed. She still was not sure as to why Greed had bothered, though. From what she understood, dates were just a precursor to what humans _really_ wanted – getting into each other’s pants – and she and Greed were already happily doing so. But, even after a hundred years away from each other (not counting their little tryst at the Faire), Envy knew that trying to keep Greed from what he _wanted_ was almost always an exercise in futility. And if what he wanted was to take her to see something cool, and then treat her to ice cream, well, it would be stupid to argue. The walk along the beach after their ice cream had been so nice too, just the two of them, strolling along slowly, feeling the soft, warm sand between her toes after she had shifted away her shoes. How many times like this had they missed, in their century apart? Envy leaned against her lover contently, not wanting _this_ moment to end …

And stupid Greed had to ruin it.

“We should get back. Happy hour’s starting soon, and I’ve slacked off enough at work the last few days. I’d better make an appearance, before the minions ask for a raise,” Greed said, as they reached the end of the beach closest to the way back to _The Devil’s Nest_. “Aww, ‘Vee! Don’t give me that look!”

“I’m not giving you any look,” Envy grumbled. She sat down on the beach. “I don’t want to go back. The bar’s just a noisy place full of humans making fools of themselves, and I don’t care how much money you get from them.”

“Hey, they may be idiots, but those idiots feed my Chimeras. I can’t exactly withdraw from the Bank of Pops anymore,” Greed argued. He flung a rock into the lake, sending it skipping over the water, and sighed. “Look, I get it. The Nest is my thing. Maybe you just need to find your own,” he said, and sat down next to her.

Envy’s eyes followed the trail of rings left in the water by Greed’s rock, her gaze wandering to the treetops of Yock Island peeking over the horizon. “I wish we could just go somewhere without humans, without all their drama. Just you and me. I mean, we don’t need all the crap that they do. We don’t need to eat, sleep, or even breathe if we don’t want to. We can’t starve, drown, or get sick or poisoned. Wild animals stay away from us. We don’t need _them_ at all!”

Greed put his arm around her shoulder, and Envy leaned against him, just enjoying his touch. After a few minutes, he said, “I wish it was that easy, my little monster.”

Envy did not answer, she just let Greed hold her. She knew Greed’s Sin would never allow him to just leave human society and all he _wanted_ from it. As much as _her_ Sin would never let her stop feeling …

She would rather not think about it.

After a few more minutes of their silent embrace, Greed gently tilted her head towards him and kissed her softly, as reluctant to leave as Envy was, before he got up. “I’ll leave the ‘kitty door’ open,” he offered, meaning their bedroom window. “You won’t even have to come in through the bar.” 

“ _Fine_ ,” Envy pouted, like the annoyed teenager she usually resembled. 

Greed just gave her one of his infuriatingly sexy grins. “Truth, you’re a brat sometimes, ‘Vee. But I want you anyway.” He sauntered off, and waved over his shoulder. “See ya when you get home.” 

Envy raised her middle finger at his retreating form. She then turned back towards the water, trying to ignore the fact he was leaving without her, _again_ , then mentally kicked herself for being so clingy. 

A few more minutes past, before Envy was sure she could no longer hear Greed’s footsteps. She pulled her knees up to her chin and leaned against them, staring out at the water, the soothing nothingness of the lake almost making her forget the town behind her, the fact that Greed would rather go back to his bar and minions and _humans_ than spend more time with her … 

Stupid Greed.

Stupid jealousy.

Stupid Father for making her this way. 

At least she’d never have to see _his_ disapproving scowl ever again, if she was lucky. She swore Pride inherited his prickishness from their old man, even though she knew full well that was not how things worked for homunculi. 

Pride …

She might never see him either. Or Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, or …

Lust. 

Envy closed her eyes. As much as she hated to admit it, she missed her older sister, even though it had been just over a week since she last saw her at Liore. It hadn’t been that long – she had gone months without seeing any of her siblings in the past and had not really felt anything. Why was this time any different?

**_Because this is_ your _fault, Envy._**

With a chill running down her spine, Envy eyed the shadow of a nearby tree, grown long in the late afternoon sun.

**_Why do you even want to stay with that traitor? He ran away, he left all of us, but especially you. Don’t you remember how_ terrible _he made you feel?_**

Envy looked around her, panic rising; she could feel her Stone pulsing in the nape of her neck. Every tree, rock, every blade of grass cast a shadow, and she was acutely aware of each one. 

**_You foolishly gave him your body, your allegiance, your_ heart, _as sickening as that particular metaphor is. You gave up_ everything _you have to be with him, even though you_ know …**

Envy’s own shadow spread out behind her, she could almost feel his tendrils oozing from it, crawling up her back, under her blouse to her back nodes, like tiny, inky cobras ready to strike. 

**_It will_ never _be enough for him._ You _will_ never _be enough._**

The shimmering of the lake caught her eye. The water, ever moving, ever shifting, the light reflecting from the sun in ever-changing patterns … Pride’s shadows couldn’t form there, couldn’t cross! Not without his container being near. 

Envy looked around quickly, and seeing no humans nearby or looking, took a shape that she had not really tried before, but was similar enough to her True Form that it came to her quite easily. She sunk down onto all fours and _stretched_ , her mouth shooting outwards and filling with pointy teeth, a long, thick tail sprouting behind as her arms and legs compressed downwards. Her skin took on a much more natural, scaly, armoured appearance and strong claws graced her now-webbed feet as her hair retreated into her head. More quickly than humans would have ever expected from such a creature, she darted for the water, and with a few broad strokes of her tail, the crocodile she had become was swimming strongly, away from the memory of her eldest brother.

Envy kept swimming through the crystal clear lake, just under the surface, like a true crocodile, with only her eyes and the tip of her snout poking above the water. As she swam, she began to calm down. _‘Jumping at shadows’ Greed said – no fucking kidding!_ Her tail strokes slowed, and she let the current carry her. She was not sure how long it had been, minutes, or hours, until another beach came into view, sloping gently from a small, almost completely forested island in the middle of the lake. 

“So this is Yock Island?” she wondered aloud as she came ashore and once again became her Beautiful Self. “So close to a town, but no humans live here. None go here …” she stepped ashore and started walking towards the forest when a mark on a tree caught her eye. She walked over to the tree, and traced the tally marks carved into the trunk with a finger, six groups of five, thirty in total. So, somebody _had_ been here, but not for a while, it seemed. The marks were faded, the bark starting to slowly grow over them. No other signs of human activity were anywhere. 

“Good.” Envy affirmed to herself, and she smiled her familiar, wide grin. “It’s about time I found a place to ‘stretch out’.” 

Before she could shift, however, that nagging voice once again sounded in her mind. 

**_You know better than to take your True Form outside the Lair, Envy._ **

“Shut up Pride. I know you’re not really there.”

**_It’s not too late. You can still come home._**

“ … I made my choice. Why would I go back, when here, I never have to see your smug, prick face ever again?” 

Envy’s grin widened, as she started to shapeshift again. Her grin became so much wider as she grew, her tail once again sprouting as she reared up on two massive legs, her head growing larger, her arms shrinking, railroad spike teeth sprouting in her mouth.

_Tarbosaurus_ -Envy leaned forward to roar her defiance, hoping her prick brother would hear from all the way in Central –

And promptly fell flat onto her oversized face. 

_This form still needed some work_ , she admitted to herself as she took her even more massive, but far more comfortable True Form. The difference was that here, on _her_ island, she actually _could_ take the time she needed to practice, and not have to worry about any of her siblings getting on her case about it, or laughing at her when her shapeshifting was not as instantaneously perfect as _their_ powers. She stretched out, her long tail twisting between the nearby tree trunks, her four sets of limbs unrestrained. She did not, however, manifest the renditions of her Philosopher’s Stone’s souls on her back and flanks. There was no need; there were not any humans around to terrify. Besides, their constant moaning and crying irritated her. At least when they were confined to her Stone, they were little more than a slight, background buzz, like the static on a radio, easy enough to ignore. She then curled up like a giant cat on the beach, just happy to not feel so _compressed_ for the first time in weeks. 

As she lazily watched the lake’s slight waves lap against the shore and drifted off to a warm, comfortable slumber under the delightfully hot Southern sun, she realised, annoyingly, that Greed was right. For the first time ever, Envy truly felt _free_. 

***

_This was the way back, right?_ Envy padded down the lamp-lit streets of the unfamiliar Dublith neighbourhood, back in her cat form, to avoid any unwanted social interactions. By the time she had awoke from her nap on Yock Island, the sun was setting, and she had a sneaking feeling the lake would be uncomfortably cold if she waited any longer for her swim back to shore, so she had once again taken her crocodile form, making it back onto the beach just as the last rays of the day trickled out from over the horizon. It was probably around 8pm – _The Devil’s Nest_ would be in full swing, along with the other bars and restaurants of the town, even on a Tuesday. Humans tended to get a little rowdy in the last few days of summer, even more so in a tourist town like Dublith, Envy supposed. _Considering how short their lives are, I guess it makes sense they’d celebrate every summer they get,_ she thought idly as she tried to retrace her steps back to The Nest. 

One shop window caught her attention. The lights were still on, but this was not a “rival” bar; it was much too quiet, and no “questionable” customers loitered outside like they did around The Nest. Curious, Envy turned her head towards the store. 

_The Write Way Books._ She raised an eyebrow (or would have, if she had any) at the cheesy pun. It figures, _now_ she would find a bookshop! What was it doing here, tucked away in a little street about halfway between the Lakefront and Business districts? Weird place for a store that wants to make money, or be noticed at all, for that matter. 

Curiosity won out, (or was it procrastination about returning to _The Devil’s Nest_? Whatever.) After looking, once again, to see if anyone was watching (like they would be on this abandoned street), Envy took her human form, not her Beautiful Self, but the same form she had during her date with Greed. She had dismissively called that identity her “jailbait form” in the past; she really needed to come up with a new title for it, now that she would be using it more than once a decade. 

A slight tingle of a bell announced Envy’s entrance into the shop. The shopkeeper, a twenty-something woman with long, mousy brown hair tied up in a lazy ponytail, a pair of oval-shaped glasses perched on her nose, looked up momentarily from the book laid out on the writing desk/makeshift counter in front of her. “Welcome to _The Write Way_ ,” she said automatically, a standard, I’d-rather-not-talk-to-this-person retail response, and returned to her book.

That suited Envy just fine. She gave an uninterested “hi”, herself, and started to browse. 

The store seemed to have a better business sense than she had initially thought, as her eyes immediately came to rest on a display of dinosaur books, a sign above them advertising the “Ancient Beasts” show. Envy picked up the most colourful of the books, flipped through the pages, then put it down, disappointed that it was meant for children, just stylized pictures of various dinosaurs and their Xerxian names spelled out phonetically. She picked up another, and flipped through. This one seemed more professional, the illustrations more realistically-drawn (or at least as well as a human could get imagining animals that had been dead for millions of years). She smiled approvingly, as a few of the creatures featured had full illustrations of both the skeletons of the dinosaurs, and their presumed reconstructions. It reminded Envy of the biology texts that Pride had made her study during her “childhood” – the two years after her creation when she had not been allowed to leave the Lair until she mastered human shapeshifting. As strict and boring as Pride’s lessons had mostly been, his methods had been effective, she hated to admit. _This just might be what I need to figure out these new forms._

Near the counter, a magazine rack held a few newspapers from all over Amestris (and one from Aerugo), not just from the South. Envy grabbed the copy of the _Central Times_ , the first she had seen since she had _been_ in Central. “Finally, a decent paper!” she exclaimed, while tucking her dinosaur text under her arm. 

She realised she had spoken aloud when the shopkeeper replied, “yeah, I prefer the Times too. The Gaz isn’t worth its ink,” she said, meaning the local _Dublith Gazette_ , a paper that Envy had noticed Greed reading for the classifieds (and the comics) only, then throwing the rest to the chimeras.

Heh. Humans that agreed with her were quite a bit _less_ annoying than usual. Envy then noticed the headline. “Central Library Up in Smoke.”

“I read that earlier. The First Branch of the National Central Library burned completely down last night! It’s horrible! All those books!” the shopkeeper continued. “I guess I should just be happy my cousin’s not working there anymore, but still.” 

“Yeah, terrible.” Envy said, not really paying attention. _Is this your ‘work’, Lust? If so, what a waste. You should have just killed whoever was poking their noses where they don’t belong._

Envy brought her newspaper and dinosaur book up to the counter, then noticed the cover of the book the shopkeeper was reading. It was a paperback novel, a cheap “penny dreadful”, but it was the cover illustration that got Envy’s attention. A fantastical machine loomed over a crowd of panicking humans on three massive legs, a ray of some sort shooting out, surrounding one of the crowd with flames, an expression of pure anguish on his line-drawn face.

Envy grinned at the little, illustrated man’s misery, and at the Tripod inflicting it. “Whatcha reading?” she asked the shopkeeper. “It looks good.”

The woman smiled at her interest, picked up her book and enthusiastically handed it to Envy. “Please, take a look! It’s called The War of the Worlds – it’s a ‘Scientific Romance’, a new genre I just got into. It’s amazing! Here, I’ll find you a copy!” 

As the shopkeeper scurried off to find her book, Envy read the first paragraph:

_No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. … Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us._

Envy’s eyes widened. As she read, she felt … strange. She felt a kind of kinship to those “intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic”, to creatures, that, as far as she knew, existed only in the pages of this book. _Humans fantasise about their own demise, at the hands of their betters, at that? Heh, how ironic …_

“This does look good,” Envy said as the shopkeeper returned. 

“Take that copy, I remember where my place was,” she smiled, thrilled that someone else was interested. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“To be able to leave this world behind, go somewhere else, be someone else, all without leaving the room. That’s what I love most about books. Why I opened this shop, even when business sucks.” 

“I never thought about it that way before,” Envy admitted absentmindedly, as she shifted subtlety, reaching into a pouch she had formed in her skort earlier to hold her small wallet. She hated pockets, but had little choice when it came to shifting and carrying the money she had rescued from her train suitcase – she was lucky to have found it still sitting out in the alley where she had first tracked Bido. She would have to remember to pick up a purse at some point. 

The shopkeeper put the books and newspaper into a brown paper bag for Envy. “That will be 2730 cenz, please.” 

Envy pulled out three 1000-cenz notes. “Wait, there’s no charge for the novel?”

“Nah, call it a new customer special. I just hope you like it. Maybe you can come back when you’re done and we can talk about it?” the girl said, awkwardly, wringing her hands. “It’s so hard meeting fellow bookworms, especially with my cousin in Central – reading runs in the family. I mean, only if you want to. I can make us a mean cup of tea!” she handed Envy her change. 

“I’ll, um, see about that,” Envy said, equally awkwardly. Was this human really trying to _make friends_ with her? Weirdo. She turned to leave the store.

“It’s Mattie!” the shopkeeper piped up. 

“Huh?”

“Mattie. That’s my name – short for Matilda.”

“… Evie.” Envy said, just to shut her up.

“Okay, Evie! Hope to see you again!” she called as Envy made her way out the door. 

***

“So, are you totally sure what you saw? You’re not my only source from East City, you know, and I’m sure you’ve heard that I … dislike being lied to,” Greed eyed the thug in front of him, with Roa standing behind the couch, no doubt looking appropriately intimidating. He did not need to look back to know his minion’s hammer was balanced, oh so _casually_ on his shoulder. He grinned, putting the lowlife slightly more at ease. 

“I – I swear, Mister Greed, Sir. That kid wasn’t just wearing armour, he _was_ the armour! That scar-faced Ishvalan blew like half of him away before the Feds showed up, but he was still moving and talking and everything, but there was _nothing there_! I saw’ed it with my own eyes!” the thug sputtered. 

“Interesting …” Greed leaned forward on his couch, then turned his head when he heard the door to The Nest open. “Envy?” his sunglasses slid down his nose in surprise. 

“Hey, I’m back a bit early,” Envy smiled, still ‘wearing’ the same form she had been when they had gone out on their date. She walked confidently across the bar, and plopped down on the couch beside him, throwing a bag lazily onto the crate that served as his “coffee table/footstool”. His fellow homunculus then reached into the bag, pulling out a paperback book. She snuggled up against his side but turned slightly away, her book grabbing her attention, and subsequently ignored the rest of the bar. 

Greed waved his hand casually. Roa got the hint, and led the thug he had been talking to away, to finish his “meeting”. Greed then put his arms around Envy and smiled at her. “Welcome back, my little monster,” he said, and sealed that welcome with a kiss.  
After pulling back, Envy explained, “I found my own thing.” She waved her book, then subtlety closed the skin in her ears, blocking out the noise of the bar.

“Glad you did, ‘Vee,” Greed said, even though he knew she likely could not hear him. Who cared? Envy was at his side, right where she belonged. 

After all, what was the King of the World without his Queen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (More) Author's Notes:
> 
> Excerpt used from _The War of the Worlds_ by HG Wells, published in 1898, so it's totally possible that it *could* have been published in FMA's world as well, and available by the series' present year of 1914.
> 
> A note on the dinosaurs, for the non-paleontology nerds:
> 
> Instead of going with standard "stock dinosaurs" (i.e. _Brontosaurus, T rex, Triceratops_ , etc), I thought I'd go with the species that have been found in the Gobi desert of Mongolia in Real Life, since Xing is analogous to China. Some of the species weren't discovered yet by 1914 in our history, but I figured the discovery dates of seventy million year old fossils might have a little leeway in FMA's world, especially if Paleontological Alchemy is a thing. Here's a brief explanation of the species I referenced:
> 
> _Velociraptor_ : This one should be obvious, though, unlike what you may have seen in _Jurassic Park_ , real _velociraptors_ were actually quite tiny, as far as dinosaurs go. They were also covered in feathers, like their bird relatives. However, I thought the "classic" scaly look would be more likely to be something Envy found cute. Besides, I don't think their palentology is quite *that* advanced yet. The fossil that the Emperor of Xing claimed is based off the famous real life "fighting dinosaurs" fossil of, well, a fighting _Velociraptor_ and _Protoceratops_. The RL version is considered a National Treasure of Mongolia, so I figured Xing probably did the same (it's not like Xerxes itself is around to claim it.)
> 
> _Protoceratops_ : a roughly sheep-sized, hornless relative of _Triceratops_. As mentioned above, likely a favourite prey of _Velociraptor_. For a long time, it was assumed the first ever dinosaur eggs discovered belonged to _Protoceratops_. However, it was recently discovered that the eggs actually belonged to _Oviraptor_ , a therapod that had previously been assumed to be stealing the eggs, but was actually caring for them. Hence the "presumably its eggs" line. Interestingly, _Protoceratops_ fossils may be the inspiration for the legend of the Gryphon (it did have a bird-like beak, after all).
> 
> _Wuerhosaurus_ : An Asian relative of _Stegosaurus_. I thought Envy would like its Thagomizer (tail spikes).
> 
> _Tarbosaurus_ : An Asian relative of _Tyrannosaurus rex_. So similar to its North American cousin, in fact, that some paleontologists argue that it should simply be another species in the _Tyrannosaurus_ genus, like how modern big cats (Lions, Tigers, Leopards and Jaguars) are just different species in the _Panthera_ genus.
> 
> _Hapoterus_ : A small Asian pterodactyoid pterosaur (not a dinosaur, but a flying reptile). I included it as a comparison to the giant wingbones, similar to those recently discovered in the Gobi desert, likely belonging to a giant pterosaur similar to _Quetzalcoatlus_ , aka the largest flying creature in prehistory, as tall as a giraffe with a wingspan like an Cessna airplane! So yeah, if Envy can learn to shapeshift into something like that, she'd be one happy homunculus!


	4. The Staircase Leading Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because Envy has run away with her boyfriend doesn't mean the rest of FMA's plot won't happen. Two days after burning down the First Branch of the Central Library, Pride convinces Wrath to take Mrs. Bradley out on a date, so he will have a chance to see Lust, before she departs for the East once again. With the Promised Day edging ever closer, the two eldest homunculi have less and less time to spend together, and Pride doesn't want to waste the opportunity, both to spend time with his lover, and to plan their next moves, especially in light of their younger siblings' "tardiness" in returning from Liore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This chapter's title is not in reference to a song, for once. Instead, it refers to my (as of right now) only professionally published work, the urban fantasy short story "The Staircase Leading Up". If you'd like to read it, let me know (through a comment here, or a PM on ff.net - same pen name) and I'll send over a copy. Otherwise, it's only available in an anthology by a publisher who proved to be less than professional, and I'd rather my readers not waste their money.
> 
> Special thanks again to my beta reader, and Captain of the Lust/Pride ship (the HMS Prust?) Shocotate! Her advice is always awesome, but especially important in chapters featuring my beta couple (and her OTP). She's no slouch when it comes to Envy either -- check out her latest fic, "(No) Substitute". Thanks again! 
> 
> Anyway, from this point on until the inevitable new version of "The Beasts of Dublith", I'll be alternating chapters, between Greed and Envy's "adventures" in Dublith, and Pride and Lust pushing the plot forward with the reminder that the rest of FMA is, in fact, still happening. Enjoy!

**Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood**

**"Aegis of Eris"**

***************************************************************************************************************************************

Chapter 4: The Staircase Leading Down

"Did you remember to brush your teeth, Selim? And you finished your homework for your tutor? Oh, and what about a bedtime story?" Mrs. Bradley fretted, as she tucked her son into bed.

"Teeth brushed, homework finished before dinner, and Father and I just read another chapter in _Treasure Island_." "Selim" answered, with all the sweetness he could put into his act. He put on an appropriately cute smile as Wrath's wife ruffled his hair.

" _You_ are such a treasure, my Selim!" she gushed, and gave him a motherly kiss on the cheek.

"Victoria, dear, we really should be going," Wrath said, no doubt noticing the tiny flash of annoyance cross his older brother's face at his wife's affection, even if she was oblivious." Selim will be fine. The servants are here, and our house is right within Central Command."

"I know, it's just … Selim, you've only just come to live with us –"

"Dear, it's been almost three years."

"I know, but it _feels_ like it was yesterday," Mrs. Bradley said with a fond look at her son. "I don't want you to think we're abandoning you just to go out for dinner …"

"And dancing!" Wrath added.

"Oh, King!" Mrs. Bradley giggled at her husband's enthusiasm, which Selim was sure was _not_ part of Wrath's act.

"Of course not Mother. You and and Father both work so hard, you deserve to go have some fun. I'll be fine," he yawned. "I should get to sleep anyway."

"Come on, let our boy rest." Wrath tugged gently at his wife's sleeve.

Mrs. Bradley followed her husband out the door of Selim's bedroom reluctantly. "Goodnight Selim, my angel. I love you."

"Goodnight Mother …" Selim said sleepily from beneath his quilt.

He listened as hers and Wrath's footsteps faded down the hallway, as they gave last minute instructions to the night butler and the guards on duty outside the front door.

As he listened, Pride _stretched_ , his shadows slowly uncoiled from his container and slithered throughout his room. Inky black tendrils stretched across the green carpet, tracing its embroidered Amestris dragon, over the neatly displayed plush animals and children's books Mrs. Bradley continuously gifted to him (despite his appropriately modest protests), across his school desk, piled high with advanced (but not _too_ advanced) textbooks and schoolwork, and slowly slid up the Amestris flag-green wallpapered walls, mouths full of shiny, flat, white teeth snapping quietly in the darkness, and perfect, magenta-irised, slit-pupiled eyes flickering open. One such eye-bearing tendril rose up to his bedroom window and watched the fading taillights of Wrath's car as it drove away.

It would be at least three hours before Wrath and his wife returned, just as he had instructed his youngest brother earlier:

"I have business down below. Take your wife out on a date as soon as your duties allow. She has an annoying habit of 'checking in' on 'dear Selim' in the middle of the night. I need a few hours uninterrupted."

Wrath had just looked at him smugly from his desk as he sipped his tea. "If you want to see Lust that badly, you can just say so. No need for these games."

 **"My business is my own, _little_ brother."** He had used his True Voice, the voice of his shadows, for emphasis. Usually, that was more than enough to remind his brother of his place.

Wrath had simply nodded.

As much as Pride did actually somewhat enjoy his time "playing house" with Wrath and his wife – for all her fussiness, Mrs. Bradley's affection for him at least _seemed_ genuine, well, as much as a human's could be – he had been impatient for some time to himself. Time when he did not have to put on the "Selim" performance and could spend time with someone who treated him like the over 350 year old that he was, instead of the child his container resembled. Wrath had obliged him without further complaint, of course (he knew better), and had arranged this latest outing within two days.

Two days since the _awful_ tragedy of the First Branch of the Central Library going up in smoke.

Lust was still in Central, but would have to return to the East shortly.

Pride climbed out of his large, four-poster bed and reached into the bottom drawer of his dresser. Hidden below a layer of pyjamas was the outfit he saved just for these occasions, as rare as they were: an actual pair of neat, black trousers (not boyish shorts), a starched white, button-down shirt and black jacket, with black shoes that shone like mirrors, and a magenta necktie, the same shade as both his and Lust's eyes. Although he knew full well that Lust could not care less about what he wore, as long as they got to see each other between their ever-increasing duties, he still wanted to look his best. As he changed out of his pyjamas and into his chosen outfit, Pride idly wondered just why so much of Father's great, centuries-spanning Plan was only _now_ manifesting, with the Promised Day short months away. With a shake of his head, he quickly banished such blasphemous thoughts from his mind. Father had his reasons, and The Plan was progressing _exactly_ as it should.

It was his and his siblings' duty to _keep_ that progression going, not to question it.

He stretched a shadow over to his dresser and picked up a comb in its tiny hand-like tendril. Giving his hair a final straightening – not a strand out of place – he smirked at his refection in the mirror over his dresser, satisfied, and stretched his shadows under his bedroom door. They trickled down the hallway, inching along the walls. Sure enough, no servants were in this part of the Estate. A shadowy grin appeared, as Pride recalled the strained whispers from the maids and footmen, never uttered in the presence of their employers, of chittering noises, of fleeting sights, rumours of those who dared to wander the darkness of the Presidential Estate at night and were never seen or heard from again …

They were almost too terrified to use the bathroom in the servants' quarters. They would certainly never even think to disturb "sweet little Selim" while he slept.

Besides, the rumours were not _completely_ unfounded, Pride mused, and licked his lips.

Pride slipped quietly out his bedroom door, walking with perfect, silent steps down the hall to the plain, wooden servant's staircase, a narrow structure, unlike the broad, main stairs that led up from the foyer, meant so that servants could go about their duties unnoticed. Pride crept quietly down the stairs, the wooden steps, prone to creaking, made not a sound under his light footsteps, as if the structure itself knew better than to annoy the First Homunculus.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, outside the darkened kitchen, and opened a barely visible door, revealing a storage cupboard under the stairs. Although the shelves lining the cupboard were packed with kitchen supplies, the floor was bare, wooden planks. Only a small hole in one plank revealed the floor's real purpose. With a small tug of a tendril, the trap door opened up, revealing the spiral staircase below, leading downwards into the dark.

Down to Pride's _true_ home.

He stepped down into the abyss, his shadows quietly closing the cupboard door behind him.

***

The journey down to the Lair never took too long, despite how deeply below Central Father's abode was. With still relatively new, electric lamps lining the narrow, cylindrical stairwell every few metres down, Pride did not even have to worry about taking a candle with him anymore – there was always _just_ enough light for his shadows now. Pride smiled wryly at the convenience, and formed his shadows into a disc below his container, a few wrapping snugly around his legs to stabilise him, as he pushed forward, riding the disc down the stairs much more quickly than walking downwards would take him – what had Envy called it again? "Shadow surfing", when he had used a similar way of moving on a mission once. Not that he would ever let Envy – or anyone else for that matter – see him use his shadows in such an … undignified way, just sliding down the stairs. He suppressed the urge to giggle like the child he resembled as he reached the bottom in mere minutes. Instead, he just stood up and brushed a speck of dust off his jacket shoulder.

Within a few more minutes, Pride had reached Father's "throne room". Father was, as usual, on his throne, engrossed in the book balanced on his lap. His golden eyes flickered upwards at Pride's entrance, but he said nothing. There was no need. Pride bowed briefly to his parent, but likewise said nothing, not wanting to disturb him. If Father had wanted to speak with him, he would have done so. The acknowledgement of Creator and Creation finished, Pride made his way to the opposite side of the throne room, to the door leading towards the area his siblings had claimed.

The small wing of rooms, mostly former prisoners' cells, but in one case, a natural cavern that have been discovered when one cell had "lost" its back wall, had been taken over by the homunculi long ago, each sibling, (with the exceptions of Wrath and Sloth) taking a room of their own. Pride briefly checked into his own, the one closest to the throne room. Like his room in the estate up above, not a thing was out of place, though he had no toys down here (with the exception of a few "souvenirs" taken from his previous acts at their conclusions), and the books arranged neatly on his shelf were far more advanced, texts on alchemy, history, politics, philosophy – no childish adventure novels here. Nothing had been touched, of course. His siblings knew better than to invade his privacy.

Across the tunnel/hall from his was the collapsed doorway, little more than a hole in the wall, that led to Envy's room, his shapeshifting sibling having pulled down most of the doorway a few decades ago in a laughable effort to keep its siblings out, leaving just a space large enough for Envy – or Pride's shadows – to slither through. Pride slid a shadow into the cavernous space, taking note that a few more of the stalactites hanging from the ceiling were broken compared to his last "visit". Just as he thought, the "room" (cave, really) was empty. The large, flat rock where Envy slept, stretched out in its giant True Form, was covered in soft quilts and blankets piled messily across it – the "bed" left "unmade" when Envy had left on its mission to Liore, and had seemingly not been touched since. Pride frowned at the mess, and at the two-metre long plush Xingese dragon that stretched across part of Envy's ledge. Why a giant reptilian monster felt the need to sleep with a plushie was something Pride would rather not dwell on, lest his middle sibling's frustrating lapses into illogic cause a twitch in his eyes (container's and shadows').

The small, cell-like room beside Envy's was likewise empty, not that Gluttony spent much time there anyway. Surprisingly, a small stack of children's books were scattered in a corner next to Gluttony's "bed" – a large pillow. Pride picked up one with a tendril curiously, and grew an eye, examining the alphabet book. On his container's face, Pride's eyebrow raised. Had Lust or Envy been trying to teach Gluttony to read? He scoffed at his siblings' waste of time.

Pride pointedly ignored another door further down the hallway, shut for the last century on the cluttered mess within, left by its former, treacherous occupant. There was no need for _any_ homunculus to go in _there_ ever again. Not since he had helped Envy with its "therapy" – destroying the junk that _he_ had left behind really did wonders to help it get over how badly Gre – no, he would not even _think_ his name. How that _traitor_ had betrayed them all, especially poor, pathetic, emotional Envy. Pride smiled darkly at the thought of how _delicious_ it would be when they finally did find _him_ , and Father's righteous Justice was served.

Finally, Pride stepped in front of the door of the one sibling he actually did respect. Lust … so much had passed between them in the last 250 years since her Creation. They were so many things to each other. Teacher and student. Colleagues in fulfilling Father's Will. Caretakers of their younger siblings. Friends, confidants …

Lovers.

Just as Pride stepped forward to knock at his sister's door – the only sibling to whom he would afford such a courtesy – it opened, and he found himself gazing up into her beautiful, magenta eyes, eyes that matched his own so perfectly …

"Pride!" Lust's perfect face broke into an expression that graced her features so rarely: a pure, genuine smile. She kneeled down and enveloped Pride in a hug.

Pride nuzzled into her ebony tresses, **"I missed you …"** he whispered in his True Voice. He could feel his shadows pressing on the inside of his container, hardly containing his eagerness to _stretch_ , to temporarily age up to a form where she would not have to kneel to hug him.

"Patience, _my_ Pride. You wouldn't want to ruin your suit now, would you?" Lust breathed into his ear, her voice an excited whisper, hardly containing _her_ Sin.

 **"Of course not, _my_ Lust"** Pride affirmed, and with a true smile of his own, let his sister lead him into her room.

***

"How do you like it?" Lust leaned back into the plush, red velvet cushions of the two-person settee positioned in the "living area" of her rather large room, the irony of the furniture's more common name, a "loveseat", not lost on Pride. Lust's room was, in truth, more like an apartment. As well as her large, comfortable bed, a big pillow placed next to it for Gluttony, Lust had her sitting area, the walls lined with shelves of books, both texts, and her collection of romance novels, her own, attached bathing room, and a sizable wardrobe and dresser filled with at least a century's worth of clothes of every fashion that had come, gone, and come again, though none anywhere near as beautiful, in Pride's opinion, as the dress Father had bestowed upon her, which now wrapped around her graceful form as surely as his shadows. Lust did have the most luxurious of all the homunculi's rooms, as she should, given her role in the Plan.

Pride balanced the saucer on his lap, on top of the intricately embroidered blanket covering his longer-than-usual legs, and brought the matching teacup up to his lips, the steaming liquid within's ruby colour barely visible against the black porcelain, inlaid with winding silver Xingese dragons. He smiled approvingly as he tasted the fruity flavour of the tea.

"It's a blend called 'summerberries'," Lust explained as she took her own seat beside him on the settee. "Hibiscus, rosehips, apple and at least three different kinds of berries. And it needs no milk, honey or sugar. I discovered it in the South, last time I checked up on the Forset front," she said as she took a sip from her own teacup.

Pride nodded. "From what I heard from Wrath, _that_ Crest, at least, is proceeding entirely as it should. Plenty of deaths stretched over time, with a minimal amount of stupid human drama." He enjoyed the deeper timbre of his adult form's voice, so much more respectable than the child's tone his act forced him to use. From the subtle twitch of a smile at the corners of Lust's mouth as he spoke, he knew she enjoyed the change as well.

"One almost feels grateful to the Aerugans for being such comparatively rational opponents. Their focus on territory and economics is somewhat refreshing compared to the more idiotic reasons humans fight one another, like _religion_. "Lust said, with a sneer at the final word.

"Indeed," Pride agreed, then winced as a tremor ran through the shadows keeping his container "stretched" into his adult form. He tried to keep his container still, but a slight tinkling sound of his teacup against the saucer gave him away.

"Pride?" Lust's sultry voice was tinged with concern. She got up and put her own teacup and saucer onto a side table, and did the same with Pride's, before she sat back down next to him, placing her hands onto his bare chest.

"I'm alright," Pride said with a slight gasp.

"You're not," Lust said, her magenta eyes meeting his. "Don't keep this form on my behalf, my Pride. You've done enough, for now," she pressed her perfect, dark lips to his.

Pride reveled in the kiss, an intimacy so rare, so precious. Lust would only kiss him in this way in his adult form. After too short a time, she broke the kiss and stood up, as Pride reluctantly relaxed his shadows.

Within a few minutes, his container had rebounded back to the child's form Father had graced him with.

Pride slid off the settee with an annoyed wince as his feet once again had to drop a short ways to the floor, wrapped the blanket around his waist (trying not to trip on the now-excess fabric), and started his search for his clothing, his immaculate suit having been scattered across his sister's room in their earlier excitement. **"I _should_ have been able to hold it for longer,"** Pride growled with his True Voice as he found and slid on the first of his garments.

"We're just out of practice, that's all. Both of our duties have been pressing lately," Lust assured him, as she reached for her cup.

 **"At least all but one of the Crests are carved now, and it will not be difficult to push Briggs into violence,"** Pride said as he found and put on one of his socks.

"I still think we _should_ have finished the Crests decades ago," Lust frowned slightly over the rim of her teacup.

 **"Father has his reasons,"** Pride assured her, though with a touch of sharpness in his tone.

"Do you doubt my Faith, Brother?" Lust asked, her eyes narrowed.

 **"Of course not,"** Pride found the last article of clothing – his jacket – and climbed back onto the settee next to his lover. He stretched a shadowy tendril out to the side table and retrieved his teacup. **"Though our duties would be quite a bit easier if a certain brat of a State Alchemist would stop getting himself into suicidal situations."**

"His commanding officer is not much better. The Flame Colonel's meddling is becoming quite tiresome. Not to mention his uselessness when it comes to anything not relating to his own, specialist alchemy or his obvious social-climbing schemes. He had that Ishvalan menace – who, I might add, had just tried to murder his subordinate – surrounded, with himself, Strong Arm, and a renowned sharpshooter in the fray, and as soon as they saw that terrorists' red eyes they let him escape," Lust said with a scoff. "Disgusting incompetence, allowing their misaimed 'guilt' over Ishval to distract them from executing him on the spot." Lust stretched her arms over her head, and her talons, letting them grow to about 30 centimetres in length, before retracting them again. "Oh how I wish that arrogant, useless Flame Colonel was _not_ a potential Sacrifice."

 **"Patience, _my_ Lust,"** Pride took her hand in his, and stroked one of his tendrils gently through her hair. **"After the Promised Day, we shall make the Flame Colonel pay for his arrogance, _together_."** One of his shadows, stretched across the wall of Lust's room, grew an even-toothed grin, as long as Lust was tall.

"You always know the _sweetest_ things to say," Lust purred.

 **"I know Wrath was already considering transferring the Flame Colonel to Central, to better keep an eye on him. I will inform him to expedite the process. It may take a few weeks – humans and their bureaucratic nonsense – but it will be done,"** Pride said, and took another sip of his delightfully sweet tea.

"At least Fullmetal seems to be taking a bit of a vacation. He and his brother are here in Central. I believe they intended to find the wayward Crystal Alchemists' notes, but that obviously isn't happening now," Lust said with a proud smile.

 **"Strange that they would stay in Central then, but no matter,"** Pride remarked with a slight shrug. **"Is Gluttony still in East City?"**

"Yes. I was going to go retrieve him tomorrow morning," Lust squeezed his hand. "I'm glad we were able to spend some time together before then."

Pride gave a small smile, as he longed for the Promised Day, and the end the duties that separated them. **"When you arrive, if Gluttony can still smell the Ishvalan, track him down and kill him. I've had enough of human incompetence in that matter."**

"As have I," Lust agreed.

**"Bring Gluttony back home with you afterwards. With the Flame Colonel's transfer, there will be little reason to continue to surveil that slum."**

"Believe me, I've had my fill of that entire, miserable Eastern Province, especially now that the Liore Crest is Carved," Lust said. "By the way, have you or Wrath heard anything from Envy?"

 **"I haven't, and neither has Wrath, to my knowledge. Why?"** Pride asked.

Lust got up and retrieved an opened envelope from the reading desk about a meter away from the settee. "She sent this about a week ago," she handed the envelope to Pride.

 **"She?"** Pride raised an eyebrow at the specific pronoun.

"Envy mentioned in Liore that she wanted to be female for the next little while, to help 'erase the stench of Cornello'. I can't say I blame her. Besides, it's nice to have a sister. I have enough brothers as is."

 **"Father graced Envy with the genderless body of the Perfect Alchemical Being,"** Pride pointed out. **"One would think _it_ would be more grateful."**

"Father also gave Envy the _ability_ to choose whatever gender, or neither, that he, she or it wants. Who are we to deny that choice?" Lust countered. "But never mind that for now."

Pride gave a slight nod at his sister's valid point. He tipped the envelope in his hand, and unfolded the paper that fell out.

_Dearest Sister Solaris,_

_I just wanted to let you know I was safe. I barely escaped from Liore on time, before those horrible riots started. I can still see the smoke from here in Posterim. Goodness, I must have seen at least 63 poor souls meet their end before I reached safety._

_I will take the next train to Central in the morning. I'll be back home in a few days at most._

_Your dear sister,_

_Diane_

Pride read the sickeningly sweet letter, random little hearts and musical notes scribbled around the text, the letter "i"s dotted with stars as well. **"Only sixty-three? Envy must have really wanted to get away from that town to not have killed more on its way out."**

"I was surprised as well, although we both had plenty of _fun_ while I was still there," Lust noted. "That letter was sent over a week ago. Even if Envy got delayed on the train, she could have easily just transformed into a dog and run the rest of the way home by now."

 **"It's Envy. It's probably just slacking off,"** Pride assured her. **"I'll be sure to have a 'chat' with our sibling when it does finally return."**

"I wish she had more focus on the rest of our work, not just on killing people. Envy would be ideal to supervise Fullmetal. When that troublesome Sacrifice and his brother do leave Central, one of us, or an actually competent pawn, should be watching him at all times, so he doesn't try to kill himself again."

 **"I can think of no better punishment for Envy's tardiness than that precise assignment,"** Pride said with a smirk. **"Until Envy's return, my _favourite_ sibling, I shall assist you myself with your duties in Central, as much as I am able."** Pride closed his container's eyes. **"Fullmetal and his brother are currently at that intelligence officer, what was his name again? Oh yes, Hughes', apartment, playing with that annoying child of his. I believe Wrath once expressed a desire to shove his swords through her head just to keep Hughes from badgering everyone in sight with pictures of her."**

"Our youngest brother always does have the most _entertaining_ ideas." Lust placed her now-empty teacup on the side table, and pulled Pride against her, as their conversation drifted off to lighter topics.

Pride just enjoyed his time with _his_ Lust, and looked ever more forward to the Day when they would never have to part again.

***

Victoria Bradley jostled slightly against her husband's arm and blinked out of her doze as their car came to a stop. King exited the car first, and before Victoria had finished taking off her seatbelt, her ever-charming husband held her door open for her. She blushed, _after so many years he's still so considerate!_

"I hope you had a nice time tonight, Dear," King said as he helped her to her feet.

"As long as I'm with you, we could be getting street food from a stand, and I'd still be thrilled. Though I'm not going to complain about steak dinners and ballroom dancing." Victoria smiled.

"I hope not – even to the Führer, nights like this don't come cheap!" King said in that good-natured way of his that never failed to make her smile.

"Maybe if you finally retired, we could have more nights together?" she suggested as they reached their door. One of the guards stationed in front opened it for the First Couple as the other saluted. Victoria acknowledged both with a polite "thank you, gentlemen."

King sighed. "I wish I could, dear, but those idiots at HQ wouldn't know what to do without me. Besides, I'm not _that_ old yet. However, I think I could do with a little more time in Central, after the Southern Inspection. Leave the gallivanting around the country to the young and stupid. Will that do, my dear?"

Victoria gave her husband a soft peck on the cheek. "For now, until I have to 'order' you on leave," she said with a smile, that King soon matched.

The First Lady took off her light fall coat and handed it to their ever-attentive night butler with another "thank you". "I'm just going to check on Selim before we settle in for the night."

King paused as Victoria climbed up the ornate, Amestrian-green carpeted staircase from the foyer. "He's probably asleep now, dear."

"I won't wake him up. You know I just like to check on our little angel, that's all." Before her husband could further frown at her 'over-protectiveness', Victoria quickly made her way down the hallway and quietly opened the door to her son's room.

"Victoria …" King began as he reached her side.

"Shhh," she placed a finger over King's moustache.

Wrapped up in his blankets like a caterpillar in its cocoon, was her little boy. Selim's eyes were closed, and he breathed lightly; he looked so angelic in his sleep that Victoria felt like her heart would burst. Never had she _hoped_ she would be so lucky as to have a son like her perfect, beautiful Selim. Her Pride and Joy.

King smiled, and took her hand gently. "Come on dear, let our boy rest," he echoed his sentiments from earlier that night.

Victoria sighed, closed Selim's door quietly and let her husband lead her to their own room.

She never noticed the shadowy shape, or its magenta eye blink, as the door to her room closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: The tea Lust and Pride drink is a real blend, Tetley's Summerberries herbal tea - one of my favourites (and I really wish they'd pay me for the endorsement!)


End file.
